


Four Seasons of Change

by Lizardbeth



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Loki (Marvel) Angst, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-24 23:04:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17109842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizardbeth/pseuds/Lizardbeth
Summary: To mark their entry to adulthood, every Aesir goes to the Sacred Pools and comes out with a mark that will match with the one on their soulmate.Everyone except Loki.





	Four Seasons of Change

**Author's Note:**

  * For [summerof16](https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerof16/gifts).



> Merry Mischief Season! 
> 
> I'm always a sucker for soulmates, so I took that from your prompt list, with a bit of a twist! I hope you enjoy it!

**SUMMER**

 

“Wait for me!” Loki called, but he was panting and the shout seemed to get stuck in his throat. So he had to stumble to a stop and cough. It turned into a fit that left him breathless and his eyes watering. Worse, when he looked up, they’d run on without him. His chest ached and he kicked the nearest tree trunk, angry that he wasn’t better.

They hadn’t waited. There was no sense in chasing them, he’d never catch them. So he might as well return home.

Another cough helped clear his airway, and with a sigh he turned to head back to the garden gate.

“Hey!” Sif’s voice behind him made him turn back. “You okay?” she asked, frowning at him in concern.

She was wearing her golden hair in a high ponytail, and leggings beneath a long tunic, both were stained by dirt and he knew she was going to get in trouble for it, but she didn’t care.

“Fine,” he answered shortly with a shrug. “Running makes me cough, still. I’m going home and find a book to read.”

“I’ll walk back with you?” she offered.

At first he was eager to agree – he rarely got a chance to talk with her, just them, without Thor and Fandral hanging around, too. But he shook his head. “It’s okay. You’re not sick, so you should still have fun.”

“Are you sure?” she asked.

He waved a hand, and watched her turn around and race after Thor. He kicked the tree again, wishing he hadn’t said it, or wishing she’d insisted on going back with him, but now he had to go back alone.

At least she’d come back, which was more than Thor had done. Not that he needed or wanted Thor hovering all the time, but a little show of concern might make him feel a bit better about having to stop playing. But it wasn't as if Loki being ill was unusual or worrisome, only inconvenient.

Trudging back to the palace, he had to cough twice more, and was feeling woozy as he climbed the stairs to get to his chambers. Perhaps he hadn’t been as recovered as he’d hoped. He activated the healing vapor and sat beside it in his reading chair to study the magical theory tome his mother had given him.

She had shown him a few small tricks to entertain him, and when he’d mastered forming a little flame on his own, she’d smiled at him so proudly he wanted to learn more. At least it gave him something to do while he was stuck in his rooms and couldn’t play or run or train with his brother or with Sif and Fandral. 

But overall, he had to admit, it was generally a glorious childhood of adventure and curiosity. They were free to play and learn, with few constraints, and much laughter.

 

**AUTUMN**

 

Thor was the first to go to the Sacred Pool to commune with the Norns and discover his destiny, now that he had reached the milestone year of life and was no longer considered a child.

He came back, flush with success and a soulmate mark on his inner arm. No one recognized the pattern – Loki liked to tease him that it looked like a stew ladle or a hand cart – but after the first disappointment that he didn’t know who his soulmate was, Thor got over it at the feast that followed. The king bestowed Mjolnir, the great hammer, on Thor, as his coming-of-age gift. The whole event was a three-day celebration.

Sif was the next of their little group to go to the Pool. She came back with her mark as well – a maze-like symbol on her inner arm. It didn’t match Thor’s at all, which Thor was disappointed to see, but Loki was secretly glad. No one recognized hers either which meant Loki still had a chance.

 _Let it be me, I want to match Sif’s, please, please please_.

Loki’s day followed two years later, when it was time for him to go to the Sacred Pool as well.

Caves filled with white vapor that made him cough in a cold reminder of his youthful illnesses, and he was light-headed as he undressed. He nearly stumbled and fell into the pool, as the cloudy steam roiled all around him in dizzying display.

Sliding into the warm water of the pool was a relief, when he found the bottom was shallow enough he could stand and still have his head and shoulders out of the water. It smelled odd, sulfurous and yet sweet, and a strange lightness crept through him and his mind wandered.

The bottom of the pool abruptly dropped away from him, and he screamed as he plunged deep, mouth and lungs filling with water instantly.

He struggled, tried to swim, but there was darkness all around and he couldn’t see where to go. Kicking out with hands and feet, found no stone around him.

His head broke the surface and he sucked in frantic breaths, coughing and kicking.

His feet hit the bottom hard, and he put a foot down carefully, wary of the drop off. But there was nothing. It was all smooth stone beneath his feet, and the water shallow enough to stand up, as if it had always been that way.

But that wasn’t important – it meant the Norns had spoken to him. And it meant – soulmate mark.

Weary, panting, hair streaming water down his shoulders in icy rivulets, he held out his arm to look.

 _Please be Sif’s, please be Sif’s_ …

There was nothing.

He blinked and looked again, hoping it was faint, or small. He rubbed at his lower arm with his fingers in case it was a pattern in the skin, but his inner arm was smooth and bare.

More frantic, he looked at his other arm, his chest, everywhere. It had to be there. He had to have one, even if it wasn’t paired with Sif, he should have one. Everyone had one.

He sat in the water, letting it go over his head, trying to invoke them again. _Where is it? You have to give it to me_.

He stayed under until his lungs burned, and he deliberately inhaled water, hoping to get back to that strange dream-like state.

But his body heaved, and he shot to the surface, coughing and spitting the water out.

Still no soulmate mark.

“WHY?” he demanded aloud, and his voice broke. “Why don’t I have one? Why did you refuse to give me one? What did I do wrong?”

Only silence answered him.

It took three days for Frigga to coax Loki from the cave, and there was no celebratory feast and no coming-of-age gift from the king. 

 

 **WINTER** :

It was remarkably freeing to simply stop caring. Knowing he either had no future at all or he would be alone in it, meant nothing really mattered. He knew the end of the story, so he might as well enjoy it, right?

He could do whatever he wanted, and nothing mattered, that was the best part. Some would say “oh the poor boy has no soul mark so he’s just reckless”, and they would pity him, or they would try to discipline or shame him and he didn’t care. The Norns had already brought their discipline to bear, and nothing less than that could impress him anymore.

Even Sif, beautiful, fierce Sif, tried to give her wisdom, but he stopped listening to her either. She wasn’t for him. No one was.

He studied the dark spells, he walked paths of power and stole artifacts with a laugh, and he fought with mere daggers, wondering if this was the moment. But he slipped free each time, and Death passed him by.

So the years rolled on, and despair passed into bitterness. It was easy to laugh at Death when he thought she would come quickly, but once it was clear youthful dying was not his fate, that left a lifetime alone.

The mind, if told something is true, will make it so, by twists and turns, if necessary. So he did, little by little, make loneliness come true – teasing turned to scorn, mischief to cruelty. An argument with Sif led to his prank that permanently turned her hair black, and she swore to never forgive him. Others’ pity for him became dislike. But he knew something easy to shift was never deeply held in the first place, and so his resentment turned to hate. And in the end, he stood alone, keeping even those who loved him behind the wall he’d built, because they all had soulmarks and he had none. They would never understand.

From his place apart, he saw how reckless Thor was, how unworthy of being King if only any had wit to see it.

The Frost Giants in the Treasury was meant to be a joke, a little push to rile Thor and make his foolishness apparent. But when the joke turned on him, well, at least it explained a few things, didn’t it?

Beasts didn’t get soulmarks, did they?

Letting go of Gungnir felt like he’d come back to the start, back in the bottomless pool, praying to get his soulmark. But it had all been a cosmic jest at his expense, and now it was over. He’d reached the end of Loki’s story. It was done.

He was content.

 

 

**SPRING**

It was a disappointment to wake up, knowing right away that he’d been wrong: it wasn’t over. He was alive.

He lifted his head a little, before having to put it down again. His skin felt raw all over his body, and his muscles barely obeyed, trembling with weakness. He felt awful, but alive.

He wanted to rage at the Norns. Why did they do this to him? Why did they save him?

What was the point? Was he not allowed peace, not ever?

He made a sound in his throat, trying to scream his rage, and his voice was shattered and hoarse, breaking on a sore throat as if he’d spent years screaming it raw.

A soft voice asked, sounding surprised, “Loki?”

He opened his eyes again to see Sif, hovering above him. Her beautiful face was drawn with concern, but she smiled a little in greeting when her eyes met his. “You’re awake.”

“Where ---?” he croaked and she hushed him with a finger across his lips.

“Shhh. I have some water for you.” She had a wet cloth that she gave him the corner of, to suck the moisture off. He would’ve refused being fed in such a way, but the cool water felt good on his throat and trying to move his head made a spike of pain flare behind his eyes.

“You wanted to know, where we are,” she said. “I don’t know, not really. Heimdall saw where you’d fallen and the king sent me after.”

He frowned. That seemed unlikely. Odin would’ve wanted his failure erased, not rescued. That last disappointed ‘no’ rang in his ears again. _No, I won’t rescue you. No, you will never be my son. No, you were never anything more than a tool. At best a stray hound pup I felt pity for, but in the end, a beast shows its true nature_.

“I’ve been waiting two days for you to wake up,” she added and flattened her lips. “I wasn’t sure at first you would. You looked like bilgesnipe had trampled you.”

“That… good?” he jested wearily. He found his eyes had shut and opened them again. “Why?”

She leaned closer, an confused knitting of her brows. “Why what?”

“Why you?” He cleared his throat and managed to strip most of the bitterness from it. “You made your feelings for me quite clear already. So why are you here?”

“I – I don’t know what you mean–“ she stumbled over her words, and he smiled sourly and pushed himself up, despite the burning resistance of his entire body at the motion. But anger was enough to push him upright.

“No? You were quick enough to turn your back on me before. Quick enough to believe the worst of me. So tell me why you’re here. Did Thor send you?”

She straightened, jaw tightening and her hazel eyes glaring at him. “No one sent me. And I did not turn my back on you.”

“Do you think I didn’t hear you?” he spat. “You and your friends plotting your treason.”

“You brought the Frost Giants to steal the Casket! You stole the throne!” she exclaimed.

“I stole nothing!” he shouted at her, furious, though he couldn’t keep the volume and settled back to a lower tighter voice. “The king collapsed. Thor was gone. Mother said I should be regent. So I did. And it lasted all of a day, before you betrayed me.” He let out a bitter laugh. “You didn’t even know you were right, that’s the jest. There was a monster in the throne after all. There always was, I just never knew.” He looked down at the bare spot on his arm where the soul mark should be.

There was a silence and she swallowed. “What are you talking about? You’re not a monster. Just because you don’t have a soulmark you’re not a monster, Loki.”

He let out another sharp laugh. “No, you have it the wrong way around. I don’t have a soulmark because I’m a monster. Just the tool, the weapon, that Odin brought home from the war, and then decided he didn’t need anymore.” He saw her incomprehension and denial in her face, and it made him furious at her ignorance. “Look at it!”

He closed his eyes and touched that ice within that the Jotunn warrior’s grip had revealed. The change swept over him, a chill across his flesh, and when he looked at his hands, he saw the blue skin and the raised marks. His stomach heaved with disgust, feeling how changed he was. He knew what he had to look like, though he hadn’t brought himself to look at his reflection.

He didn’t need to see it to know he was a monster. A beast. A creature not even worth Odin saving him. The secret was spoiled, and he had no more value.

“What-- I don’t understand--” Sif whispered. “You’re a … “

“You can say it,” he interrupted. “Beast. I know.”

“No!” she exclaimed. “I meant to say Frost Giant. How is that possible?”

“Odin stole me from Laufey. Hid my true flesh with magic. Raised me to believe I was his son, but when my stupid impetuous attempt to keep Thor from being king landed us on Jotunheim, one of them touched my arm. It… awakened the truth within. That this is what I am.” He held out both hands, palms up, then turned then over.

“Is that why you were sick so often when we were little?” she asked, sounding more curious than disgusted.

Surprised by the question, he glanced at her without thinking. She would now see his eyes and flinch back. He knew they were Jotunn scarlet – his vision wasn’t quite right, the colors were strange, and he had to squint a bit at the brightness of the sun in this temperate forest where he’d fallen. "Probably," he answered. "It isn't as if they bothered to  _explain_ it to me." 

But Sif only blinked and her lips parted, before her brows drew together in a light frown. “It’s you,” she said slowly, “different but still the same.”

“So you’re not going to run your sword through me?” he asked, not sure how much was a jest. Where did he go from here, knowing what he was? What was he to do now, since he wasn’t dead after all?

Maybe he should search out the Norns and demand they explain why they were doing this to him.

“No, of course not! Loki, I came to help you.”

The glare was making his headache worse, so he changed back to Aesir skin and the light didn’t seem as piercing. “I seem to be all right. You can go back; I can manage on my own.”

She lifted her brows skeptically. “You’re not going to try to get yourself killed again?”

“Why does it matter?” he asked, giving a shrug.

She stared, taken by surprise by his response, before leaning toward him. “What? It matters. You _life_ matters, and throwing it away--”

He interrupted, “Is no more concern of Asgard’s. Laufey threw me away, Odin threw me away- maybe I’m just done. Did you think of that? The fates had their joke at my expense, and I don’t care anymore. It’s over.” He looked away, slumping down, wishing the Bifrost void had just done what it was supposed to do and spared him all this.

“Loki, no.” Her hand lay gently on his knee and he looked at it, shocked she was actually touching him. “This isn’t you talking, this is despair. And I’m not going to leave you when you’re in this state. Let me help you.”

He shook his head once. “There’s nothing you can do. The truth can’t be hidden again; I can’t pretend I don’t know.”

“That’s true,” she agreed softly. “But maybe I can help you accept it?”

He lifted his head to look in her eyes. “Could you? Could you accept finding out your parents lied to you your whole life, pretended you were theirs, but all the while you were this disgusting beast--”

Her hand slipped across his lips, silencing him. “Stop. No more hateful words. They’re not true, Loki; they never were. Did we not see for ourselves what fierce warriors the Jotnar are? How thoughtful and strong their king was? To be upset at the secret the king kept, I would be upset also. But not such loathing for yourself.”

He jerked his head away from her grip. “You lie. You’d be disgusted. You _should_ be disgusted. Go home, Sif. Leave me alone.”

“No.”

He couldn’t resist looking at her, incredulous at the flat answer. Her lips were twitching as if she was amused.

“I’m so glad my life being destroyed is so funny to you.”

“You’re being so … sullen. It’s not like you.”

“Like me?” he retorted with another bitter laugh. “Oh right, the god of mischief and lark, always quick with a laugh. Because nothing really mattered, did it? Die young, or die alone, that was always my fate,” he held out his bare forearm. “So why not laugh along the way? But then I found the jest was at my expense so it wasn’t funny anymore.”

She regarded him with somber eyes now. “Loki. Is that what you thought? That you were fated to die young or alone?”

“Well, yes.” He raised both hands in a sort of shrug, because what else was there to think.

She dampened her lips with her tongue, making them shine briefly. “You know I have one, right?”

“Yes, I am aware. Everyone has one. Every Aesir.”

She shook her head and with deft quick fingers, opened her vambrace and bared her lower arm. She held out her forearm so he could see the unfinished-looking half of a labyrinth on her inner arm.

“What does this mean?” she asked.

“That you have a soulmate,” he answered, rolling his eyes at the obvious answer.

“Where?” she asked. “Where is my soulmate?”

He stilled. “What?”

“Where is my soulmate?” she repeated. “Where is Thor’s? Where is Fandral’s? Did you never notice, Loki, that the three of us have marks and have never found our match?”

“Volstagg--”

“Volstagg married before were were born,” she reminded him. “So yes, maybe I have a soulmate. But maybe I don’t. Maybe he – or she, who knows – is dead already? Or not born. But I know that I have no match living among the Aesir. And neither does Thor or Fandral. Believe me, we looked. All of those parties you avoided or ruined? That’s what they were for. And they never worked.” Her voice softened at the last, and when he darted a look, she was rubbing the mark with her thumb and staring at it, as if wondering where that person was.

He was silent for a moment, digesting this. It had never occurred to him, really, what it meant to not find one’s mate, even after being told by the fates such a thing was, in theory, possible. What would it be like to search the arms of every living person and come up empty? At least he’d always known there would be no one.

“It’s not the same,” he muttered.

“No,” she agreed. “But it’s not that different either.”

There was some stubborn impulse that wanted to argue – she was wrong, she had to be-- but the rest of him decided he was simply too tired. His body ached, and his spirit felt hollow, as if he’d lost it in the void.

He ran both hands through his hair, holding his head for a moment, before lifting it again to look around at this place he’d landed.

It was a forest clearing, with skinny trees and bright green leaves that seemed to dart straight upward. There was little undergrowth of a scattered shrubs and grasses where the light penetrated, and mostly it was a loamy carpet of old leaves beneath.

Sif saw their surroundings were getting his interest and she offered, “There’s a hill and a cave that way.”

“You let me lie here two days when there’s shelter?” he asked, a bit affronted.

She shrugged. “The weather is very pleasant here. And the cave reeks of sulfur. There’s some kind of mineral spring in it.”

“Oh.” That seemed fair. “Any hunting?”

She shook her head. “A few small creatures in the trees and birds. So far, that’s all. But I believe there is a settlement not too distant -- I smell wood smoke when the wind shifts. Are you hungry? I could go see what they might trade?"

He shook his head, finding himself reluctant to send her away. Left by himself, he knew that dark mood would overcome him again. "No. I don't - I don't want anything." 

"All right." She leaned back, regarded him, and added, "You look like the sunlight's still bothering you. I can show you the cave?"

He agreed with that, since his head was still pounding. She offered a hand to help him rise, and he had to look at her hand in some confusion before he understood what she was doing. Even after she'd seen the truth... 

"It's still you," she murmured, as if she was the mind-reader. 

He shook his head. "Is it? I want to claw all my flesh off my bones, Sif," he admitted without looking at her. "Burn all that tainted blood right out of me. But I can't." 

"It's not tainted. It's not bad, Loki. You just need time to- to--" she waved both hands helplessly. "I'm not good with words, not like you are, but you'll figure it out. Come, take my hand and let's find some shelter. It'll be dark soon." 

Figuring it was more embarrassing to sit there and let her keep holding out her hand than simply taking it, he grabbed her wrist, and she grabbed him. For an instant, he stilled, fearing that frost would sneak out of him and hurt her. But nothing happened, and she pulled him easily to his feet. 

His step was unsteady and weaker than he expected, and without hesitation she threw her arm around his back to keep him steady. It felt -- he couldn't remember the last time she'd been this close to him. Not since he'd poisoned their friendship, certainly. 

"I am sorry about your hair," he blurted. "I shouldn't have done it."

"I shouldn't have said such awful things," she said. "I forgive you, if you forgive me?" She turned her head to look in his face. "For all of it, and we start again?"

He choked a laugh. "I'm a different person. So that seems... reasonable." 

She smiled, and her eyes seemed to glow in the golden sun. He wished in that moment that they could stay like this, always.

The cave proved to smell of rotten eggs, but it wasn't as noxious as he'd feared. He paused on the threshold to look, with the sun streaming through the narrow opening in the rock, and saw a cozy space that opened up into a high ceiling and several small pools dotted across the floor, more small puddles than anything. He squinted into the darkness beyond them, thinking there must be another light source, since something in the far wall seemed to be glowing.

A gem? Something with power? He was too tired to use seidr to check, but it looked easy enough to skirt the shallow water to reach the far side.

Sif had let him go, when he gripped an outcropping to support himself, so she hung back as he started to cross. "Did you see that stone?" he asked her. "Is it glowing? or is it only a reflect--"

The stone beneath his feet turned out to be nothing but a thin crust above a much larger pond. It crackled like glass beneath his feet and he heard Sif cry his name, as he fell in. 

It was also much deeper than it looked and he plunged underneath. Water filled his mouth into his lungs, darkness all around.

This time he didn't struggle, didn't want to fight it.  _there is nothing more you can take from me,_ he shouted at them.  _Take it._

A warmth surrounded him, supporting, even loving --  _you know the truth now, child. now we will give you what you were denied._

Strong arms seized him around the chest, and moments later, his head broke the surface, and he was coughing.

"Loki! Are you all right?" Sif demanded urgently into his face, her own wet hair streaming water down her cheeks as she shook his shoulders. 

Dazed by this sudden shift, he could only look at her before he shook himself, and nodded. "I think so?"

She pulled him to the edge and was the first up, then held out her hand to help him up, again. He saw her soul mark on the arm she'd extended and then - when he'd grasped her wrist, he saw it. A mark on his own inner forearm. 

He gasped seeing it. She saw his astonishment and her eyes followed his, her lips parting. 

A half of a labyrinth. That matched hers exactly in size.

Her eyes met his, bright with wonder. "Loki?"

"I guess -- " he started and then had to smile at the irony of it all. "I had to know who I really am, to find you." 

She yanked him up, not out of the water, but her mouth against his. They fit together perfectly, and for that moment, he forgot that anthing else existed. The truth was nothing awful, the truth had brought him to her. 

"I always knew it was you," she whispered when they parted and he was finally out of the pond. "I didn't know how or why, but in my heart - in my soul - I knew it had to be you. And I never understood why it wasn't."

"It doesn't matter anymore. Now we know." 

He looked down at their entwined hands, the matching marks on their skin, and he thought he might never let her go. 

  


**SUMMER**

The years passed. They were not always easy, filled with adventure and peril and pain, but with Sif at his side, Loki passed through the trials, growing stronger and easier with himself and with others. 

Their son, born on a brilliant summer day in a reborn Asgard, grew strong and brought delight to all who knew him. Loki, watching him play in the garden thought that, in the end, he would change nothing of what had gone before-- not a season, not a day -- if it risked losing this.

  


**_The end._ **


End file.
